Jesus and His Unexpected Invitation...

Whether you are here a follower of Jesus, or you are skeptical about the claims of Jesus and the Bible, almost every person recognizes that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, who is perhaps the most influential person in all of human history.

In the Bible, there are four different accounts of Jesus life, which are called the gospels. What is so interesting is that these four different accounts of Jesus life, which were written to four different types of people, complement one another in a way that provides us a vivid picture of the life of Jesus and what drove Him to live the life that He lived. And in two of these accounts are recorded for us the events that surrounded the birth of Jesus.

One of these four accounts of Jesus life, called the gospel of Matthew, was written to Jewish people to explain and to show that Jesus was the Messiah that God had promised would come to rescue and restore the Jewish nation as His chosen people. So to prove that Jesus was the long promised Messiah, Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy to show that Jesus had the proper family background to be the Messiah. You see, for the Jewish people, being from the right family, having the right family tree, was essential to be their rescuer and redeemer.

So as Matthew began to show Jesus family tree, they would be very familiar with the family backgrounds of the people that Matthew would talk about that were in Jesus family tree. But for a Jewish person, as they looked at Matthew's account of Jesus' family tree, would not find it to be a convincing argument for Jesus being the Messiah. Jesus' family tree would not be what a Jewish person would expect from a Messiah. This family tree was very unexpected and possibly very unconvincing.

So why would Matthew write this story this way to convince us that Jesus was the Messiah? Matthew wrote this story this way because Matthew knew something that they did not know and that we often do not recognize. Matthew wrote this story this way because Matthew knew his story. And in Matthew’s story we find a timeless truth about our story. We find Matthew’s story in Matthew 9:9:

As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector's booth;

In Matthew chapter nine, Jesus had just performed a miracle in the city in which he lived in, which was Capernaum. In this miracle, which we read in greater detail in another gospel, Jesus healed a man who was paralyzed after his friends lowered him through a hole that they had made in the roof of a house where Jesus was speaking. After healing this paralyzed man, Jesus and his disciples left the house and began walking down the street, where they came to a booth where Jewish people were required to pay taxes. Matthew, who was manning the tax booth along with others, was a Jewish man who was a tax collector that worked for the Roman Government.

Now Jews who were tax collectors were hated by their fellow countrymen for two reasons. First, these tax collectors were hated because they would often charge higher taxes than necessary in order to make a profit. Since the Romans did not care what these tax collectors charged as long as they received what was due them, many tax collectors became wealthy by charging over and above what the Romans asked.

Second, Jewish tax collectors were hated and were viewed as traitors because they were working for the enemy. Jewish people so despised tax collectors that they had a separate category for them. There were tax collectors and there were sinners. There were those who sinned and then there were tax collectors. With this background in mind, we see Jesus approach Matthew, this tax collector and sinner, who would later write the letter that bears his name in the Bible and say the following:

and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him.

Now, in Jesus day, when a rabbi or teacher asked someone to follow him, this was a call to follow the rabbi as his disciple. So Jesus here is calling this tax collector, who was so despised that they had a separate category, to follow Him.

As a Jewish person steeped in the culture of the day, can you imagine what the disciple’s response to this invitation to follow Him would be? Can you imagine Peter, for example “Jesus, I don’t think that is a good idea; I mean he is a tax collector; he is the enemy”?

What is just as hard to understand, however, is how Matthew responds. Matthew responds to Jesus invitation by leaving his tax booth and job to follow Jesus. I mean at first glance that seems odd, doesn’t it? To just get up and leave your job because a rabbi asks you to follow him seems strange, doesn’t it?

While it may seem strange at first glance, it would not have seemed strange to the crowds at Capernaum. You see, Rabbis were the most respected members of Jewish society. So to be asked to follow a rabbi was a great honor. But Jesus was no ordinary rabbi; he was performing miraculous signs that people had never seen. Jesus, at this point in His life, was viewed as a rock star or celebrity in the region. This was probably not the first time that Matthew had seen or heard about Jesus, they both lived in the same small town.

And just as important to Matthew was that Jesus wanted him: Jesus wanted a tax collector and sinner to follow Him. This invitation would have been unheard of by any other Rabbi to call such a man to follow him as a student. What would be viewed as strange or odd would be why Jesus would want such a person around Him as His disciple.

And in the same way today, Jesus extends an invitation to all of humanity to follow Him. And just as it was 2,000 years ago, people respond to Jesus' unexpected invitation in different ways. Tomorrow, we will look at the reaction of those around Jesus to His seemingly unexpected invitation.